[Triggered]

Crack!

The blazing sun scorched the eyes; a long whip howled through the air.

"Ah, I won't dare again..."

"You damned lowborn trash! You can't even push a cart properly—what use are you alive?!"

Before Wu Dao's eyes had adjusted to the bright sunlight outside the mine, waves of shrill screams, curses, and whipping reached his ears.

He looked up.

On the mine road, a wooden cart had overturned, ore rolling everywhere. A rib-thin youth rolled continuously beneath a supervisor's lash, howling in helpless despair.

It was a tough rawhide whip.

The supervisor wielding it was broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, red-eyed and snarling. The vicious scar on his right cheek twitched like a centipede. Every time he swung the long whip, his muscles bulged high, his strikes falling like wind and rain, cracking through the air.

With that force, even a beast would collapse after one blow. He was clearly whipping the boy to death.

And indeed he was.

In less than a minute, the youth stopped moving. Face-down, he spat mouthfuls of blood. The skin on his back had split open, every welt deep enough to expose bone, while his body twitched without end.

"Pah! A truly worthless life—can't even take a beating!" The scar-faced supervisor spat viciously, his eyes devoid of guilt, filled only with lingering dissatisfaction.

Wu Dao withdrew his gaze without a ripple in his heart. Over the past three months, he had long grown used to such things.

It was no exaggeration to say that the Four Seas Gang did not treat mine slaves as human.

The supervisors were like wolves and tigers, most of them violent by nature. Every day, they patrolled the mine with whips in hand. If they saw a mine slave make even the slightest mistake, the lightest punishment was torn flesh; the worst was being beaten to death on the spot!

Even if you made no mistake and behaved obediently, they could still casually invent an excuse to lash you savagely, simply to satisfy their twisted urge to inflict suffering.

Over the past three months,

Wu Dao had personally seen no fewer than fifty people die beneath supervisors' whips.

The rest had died from exhaustion, starvation, or illness, becoming filth. Add it all together, and at least a hundred people had died in this hellish mine.

Yet no matter how many died,

at the beginning of every month, the Four Seas Gang could always find new mine slaves from outside to replace them, keeping the mine's slave population fixed at three hundred.

The reason the Four Seas Gang was so rampant

was something Wu Dao had learned bit by bit from the newly arrived mine slaves over the past months.

Broadly speaking, after six hundred glorious years, the Da Li Imperial Power's fortunes had waned. It had reached the stage where the sun was sinking over the western hills.

The Four Seas Feudal Lords held armies and made themselves strong. Among the people, officials and government were corrupt and incompetent. People from every walk of life swept across all directions, oppressing the common folk, while refugees filled the land. It was every inch the scene of a chaotic age.

Under such circumstances,

the Four Seas Gang, a gang that ranked among the strongest in this prefecture, naturally acted without restraint. In their eyes, human lives truly differed not at all from grass and straw.

Clatter!

Ore was dumped into a wooden cart.

Wu Dao stopped paying attention to the poor wretch from before and prepared to head back down into the mine.

Within the mine, from dawn until dusk, there was no such thing as rest. Only in tunnels beyond the supervisors' sight could one steal a brief moment to catch one's breath.

His wings had not yet grown strong. He was weaker than others, so he had no choice but to endure this suffering!

He lacked the right to challenge the mine's rules. Enduring without revealing himself, lowering his profile, and silently accumulating strength—that was the proper path.

"You there! Hurry up and drag this little bastard to Mine No. 1 and throw him in. Bad luck!"

Just as Wu Dao was about to descend, the scar-faced supervisor pointed his long whip at him and called him out.

Wu Dao's brows furrowed slightly. He thought of some unpleasant things, but in the end, he said nothing. He stepped forward, dragged the unlucky fellow's corpse, and headed toward Mine No. 1.

Mine No. 1.

Within the Red Fire Mine, it was an ominous place. The mine slaves called it the Gate of Hell.

The reason was simple.

It produced no ore. Instead, it was a natural Earth Abyss located in the mountain's belly, a pit of the dead specially used by the Four Seas Gang to dispose of mine slave corpses!

The Red Fire Mine had been established for roughly five or six years. During that time, the number of corpses thrown into the Earth Abyss had long surpassed a thousand.

Deathly energy and cold filled the cave all year round. Just looking at it from afar made one's hair stand on end. Even physically strong members of the Four Seas Gang were unwilling to approach it too closely.

Therefore,

whenever someone died in the Red Fire Mine, mine slaves were generally the ones sent to dispose of the body.

After returning, the mild cases became dazed and unstable; the severe cases fell deathly ill, becoming the next poor wretch to be thrown inside.

Over time, Mine No. 1 became a forbidden place that made mine slaves turn pale at its mention, shrouded in an eerie and uncanny air.

Over the past three months, Wu Dao had only heard Mine No. 1's infamous name. He had never come here himself.

Now that he saw it today,

it truly exuded an unsettling, bizarre aura everywhere.

First, it was quiet!

Deathly quiet!

Outside, the mine was in full swing, noisy and boiling with activity.

Yet after entering the cave by only a few steps, it was as if one had become cut off from the world. The clamor at his ears instantly turned into vague sounds drifting from some distant place.

It felt as though the world would forget him the very next moment, making his mind and will instantly restless.

Second, it was cold!

It was high summer, with the blazing sun baking the earth.

Yet the bright cave was filled with a winter-like chill. Even though Wu Dao's physique stood within the Expert Realm, he still shuddered the moment he entered.

Finally, it was dark!

A profound darkness thicker than ink!

It was not the cave passage that was dark, but the Earth Abyss used to dispose of mine slaves—a vertical shaft, black enough to make one's heart pound.

It was not due to a lack of sunlight.

On the contrary...

Wu Dao glanced at the broad, open mountain mouth above the Earth Abyss, like a volcanic crater. He could see the blazing noon sun hanging high in the azure sky.

And yet,

the moment bright sunlight entered the Earth Abyss, it was swallowed by the profound darkness. Visibility was less than a meter.

This clearly defied Wu Dao's understanding of physics.

Still,

once he remembered that this was a supernatural world, he accepted it. There was no need to be surprised by some strange and peculiar places.

Whoosh!

The corpse, bloody as a crimson gourd, fell into the abyss and was swallowed by darkness in the blink of an eye.

Wu Dao bent down and stared directly into the bottomless abyss. His vigorous, blazing blood and qi resisted the chill rising from within, and his heart remained undisturbed.

Even if ghosts and gods truly existed, they were merely another kind of life. With enough force, all things were equal. There was nothing to fear.

Did this world have demons, monsters, ghosts, and spirits?

Wu Dao suddenly thought of this question, one he had overlooked from the very beginning. Once more, he felt an intense yearning for the mysterious world beyond the high walls.

Tsk. He would have to live long enough to get out first.

He shook his head.

Wu Dao suppressed the restlessness in his heart, took one last look into the depths of the Black Abyss, frowned, then rose and quickly left.

This abyss seemed to possess some kind of demonic nature. His currently weak lifeform instinctively feared it for no reason, as if facing a natural predator.

The longer he stayed,

the colder the strange chill that emerged became, drilling straight into his bones. Even the blazing sun overhead could not dispel it.

The mournful wails that rose from the abyss after the wind blew through became even more maddening the longer one listened. They made a person drowsy and depressed, with an urge to plunge headfirst down and end this life.

Woo woo woo~

The wind blowing in from outside suddenly grew stronger, and the howls from within the Black Abyss became increasingly unsettling.

Wu Dao frowned. The inexplicable unease in his heart made him quicken his pace toward the cave entrance. His instincts told him that if he remained here, something bad would happen.

He had always trusted his instincts.

But at that moment,

in the depths of the thick, muddy darkness beyond Wu Dao's sight,

as another corpse fell, it seemed that quantitative change had triggered qualitative change. The eternal deathly stillness began to churn and roll.

A shadow deeper than darkness itself was born. It swam swiftly like a snake, broke free of the muddy swamp, and drifted faintly toward the top of the abyss.

A few breaths later,

beneath the blazing sun,

an invisible, warped, blurry humanoid shadow slowly appeared at the edge of the Earth Abyss. Hunched over, it rapidly closed in on Wu Dao with the howling gale.

Whoosh—

A fierce, freezing wind whipped Wu Dao's tattered clothes into snapping flutters and sent his unkempt hair flying.

Mmgh...

Without warning, a coldness that pierced bone and soul made Wu Dao grunt. Every hair on his body stood on end. He froze in place, his raised right foot suspended in midair, his eyes vacant.

A tranquil village, plowing by day and resting by moonlight, a drought and scorching sun, a beggar at a street corner, a vicious face, whips and clubs, a mine tunnel collapse, a bottomless Black Abyss...

Joy, anger, sorrow, delight, howls, despair...

One unfamiliar scarlet image after another, one grief-stricken scream after another, brutally and savagely drilled through flesh and bone like electric drills, stabbing deep into his mind.

In merely two or three seconds,

Wu Dao's head felt as though it were splitting apart. An icy chill seeped to his marrow. He was worse off than dead, yet he could not make a sound.

His consciousness drifted farther and farther away amid endless chaos, madness, torment, and devastation. The blood throughout his body seemed to freeze solid, stopping in place.

Hoo—

Inhale—

A deep, heavy rhythm of breathing began.

The will he had tempered countless times within the abyss made Wu Dao immediately use the Stealing Heavenly Secrets Breathing Technique to hypnotize his brain in the face of danger, entering a state of extreme Potential Liberation.

In an instant, his brain's protective mechanisms were released. His cerebral domain operated under overload, his mind and will condensed and focused to their utmost, transforming into a Heavenly Blade that rose up, shattering endless vexations and slaying the whispers of ghosts and demons!

"Ah, I hate this!!"

As that shrill scream of unwilling resentment faded,

the sky cleared, the earth brightened, and his spirit became calm!

Wu Dao seemed to awaken from a great dream, his consciousness finally returning to itself!

But it was not over yet.

After regaining control of his brain, the nerves in his cerebral domain immediately began frantically transmitting signals of resistance throughout his body.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

His heart, which had gradually slowed under the cold's corrosion, pumped frantically like a mechanical engine. Hot blood surged and roared, racing through his body.

The exposed skin and muscles on Wu Dao's body suddenly tightened, then began vibrating strangely, rising and falling as though breathing. Within seconds, they burned red like a boiled shrimp.

Invisible to the naked eye, wisps of black qi continuously seeped from his pores under the roasting of his body's furnace of flesh and blood, until they evaporated completely.

Hoo...

He let out a long breath of foul air.

Thud~

Wu Dao's right foot slammed heavily onto the ground. The absolute rational clarity in his eyes, godlike and saintly, transformed into the seven emotions and six desires of a mortal. The scorching redness of his body gradually returned to normal.

"Huff, huff... Ghost... Ghost Possession?"

Wu Dao's voice was weak. He hunched over, his chest rising and falling sharply as the enormous physical drain from his extreme state left him gasping intensely.

The emotions that had remained unshaken even if the sky collapsed since his transmigration stirred for the first time after the bizarre event just now, shifting rapidly.

Shock, lingering fear, anger, curiosity...

Until—

without warning, information beyond his own thoughts abruptly surfaced in the sea of his consciousness—

"Evolution Point +0.1."

The expression on his face froze. He closed his eyes slightly, analyzing and digesting the information in his mind.

A moment later,

he opened his eyes. His breathing gradually steadied, and a look of realization appeared on his face. "So that's how it is."

The information that had surfaced in his mind

had already explained the Attribute Panel's purpose—beyond the human path, all was abnormal. Feed upon abnormalities, and one could evolve and transform, without limit or end.

Abnormalities, Evolution Points...

Wu Dao straightened up, chewing over those two words. He was certain that he had just encountered the Ghost Possession incident of legends from his previous life.

But the ghosts of this world seemed far too vicious!

Formless and invisible, unafraid of the blazing sun, their method of possession was not simple control. Instead, it was more like directly erasing one's consciousness, seizing the body, and taking it over.

When faced with such eerie and terrifying things, an Ordinary Person would absolutely die. Even someone whose physique stood at the mortal limit would have no means of resistance!

The reason he had managed to kill it in return just now

was mainly because he had hypnotized his brain with the Stealing Heavenly Secrets Breathing Technique, forcibly entering a state of "Unity of Heaven and Man, subduing one's own heart."

In that state, all distracting thoughts vanished. One's consciousness became absolutely clear, the mind intensely focused, and he instinctively treated the ghostly consciousness invading his brain as inner demons and stray thoughts, cutting it down.

Thus,

the Attribute Panel was formally activated.

[Physique: Expert Realm (Major Accomplishment)]

[Supernatural: Stealing Heavenly Secrets Breathing Technique (35% Potential Liberation)+]

[Evolution Points: 0.1]

When he checked the Attribute Panel again, the Evolution Points that had never changed had increased by 0.1 units.

A gray plus sign had also appeared after the Stealing Heavenly Secrets Breathing Technique.

At the same time, it provided a prompt:

Five units of Evolution Points could be used for one evolution.

Wu Dao looked at the gray plus sign after the Stealing Heavenly Secrets Breathing Technique, licked his dry lips, and turned a gaze carrying several traces of greed toward the Earth Abyss.